Chapter 34
NIKOLAI
My body aches in ways I’d forgotten possible. Three days of relentless fucking have left us both wrung out, trembling with exhaustion that goes bone-deep. Jenna lies curled against my chest, her breathing finally steady, her pulse no longer racing.
I can’t stop touching her. My hands map the landscape of her skin—every bruise I’ve left, every bite mark, every place my fingers dug too deep. The evidence of my possession covers her like a second skin, and regret twists in my chest.
“Jenna.” Her name comes out rough, abraded by forty-eight hours of growling commands and desperate confessions.
She shifts against me, wincing slightly. I trace a particularly dark bruise on her hip bone, the perfect imprint of my grip. “I marked you everywhere.”
“Good.” Her voice is barely a whisper, but fierce. “I want them.”
The simple acceptance in her tone makes my chest ache. I press my lips to the crown of her head, then trail kisses down her temple, her cheek, along the column of her throat where finger-shaped bruises bloom purple against pale skin.
I kiss every mark. Every bite. Every place I claimed her too roughly, apologizing without words because I don’t know how to say sorry for taking what I needed from her body. My lips map her ribs, her hipbones, the tender skin of her inner thighs.
“Nikolai.” She threads fingers through my hair, tugs gently. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to be gentle.” The confession scrapes out of me.
Her laugh is soft, breathless. “Little late for that.”
But she lets me continue my silent penance, lets me worship the damage I’ve done with careful kisses and touches. When I reach the bite mark on her shoulder, I linger there, tasting salt and the faint copper of blood I drew.
“Come on.” I gather her carefully, supporting her weight when her legs shake. “Let me clean you up.”
The bathroom connects to this room, all black marble and chrome fixtures. I start the water running hot, steam rising like incense while I help her step into the oversized tub.
I climb in behind her, settle her between my legs so her back rests against my chest. The hot water makes her sigh, muscles relaxing as I reach for soap and begin washing her.
My hands shake as I clean her. This intimacy feels more dangerous than anything we’ve done in the breeding room. More vulnerable than confessions whispered in darkness. I’m washing away two days of sweat and sex and claiming, and with it go the walls I’ve built around myself.
I work shampoo through her hair, massage her scalp until she melts against me. Soap her shoulders, her arms, careful around the marks I’ve left. When I reach between her thighs to clean where I’ve been buried for hours, she makes a soft sound that shoots straight to my cock.
“Still sore?” I murmur against her ear.
“Everything hurts.” But she rocks back against my growing erection, a deliberate tease. “But I don’t care.”
The admission undoes me. My careful, gentle washing becomes exploration, hands relearning every curve while clean water sluices over us both. She turns in my arms, faces me with water droplets caught in her eyelashes like diamonds.
“Can’t keep my hands off you,” I admit, the words dragged from somewhere deep. “Even now. Even when you can barely move from exhaustion.”
“Then don’t.” She straddles my lap in the tub. “Don’t ever stop touching me.”
I slide into her slowly, so slowly, watching her face for signs of pain. She’s swollen and tender, but she takes me anyway, sinks down until I’m buried to the hilt. No breeding talk this time. No claiming, possession, or promises of pregnancy. Just her body accepting mine, welcoming me home.
“Jenna.” Her name breaks on my lips.
We move together in the steaming water, gentle now, careful. My hands cup her face, thumb stroking her cheekbone while she rides me with small, precise movements. The water creates friction and slip, making every touch electric.
“I love the way you feel,” I whisper against her mouth. “Inside you. Part of you.”
She comes quietly, a soft exhale and tightening muscles, her forehead pressed to mine. I follow seconds later, spilling into her with a groan that echoes off marble walls.
Afterward, I lift her from the tub, wrap her in towels that swallow her whole. She looks impossibly small, fragile in a way that makes my chest tight with a feeling I can’t name. I dry her carefully, then dress her in clean clothes—soft cotton that won’t chafe her marked skin.
“Hungry?” I ask.
She nods, and I lead her from the room for the first time in two days. The compound’s kitchen is industrial, with all-stainless-steel, commercial-grade equipment. I sit her on a stool at the prep island, then move around the space.
“You cook?” she asks, watching me pull ingredients from the refrigerator.
“Had to learn.” I crack eggs into a bowl, whisking them smooth.
The normalcy of cooking feels surreal after the intensity we’ve shared. But her presence grounds me, makes even mundane tasks feel significant. I make her scrambled eggs with cheese, toast with real butter, and coffee black.
She eats slowly, watching me over the rim of her mug. “What happens now?”
The question I’ve been avoiding. “What do you want to happen?”
“I asked first.”
I lean against the counter, studying her face. The bruises look worse in normal light. Evidence of my loss of control, my desperate need to mark, claim, and possess.
Instead of answering, I reach for the mask. It sits on the counter where I left it before entering the breeding room; the composite material that’s been my face for so many years—I forget sometimes what lies underneath.
“Do you know what this means to me?” I ask, turning it over in my hands.
She shakes her head.
“It’s not just a mask.” I trace the material, the predatory lines carved into artificial bone. “When I put this on, I become what they made me. No conscience. No hesitation. No mercy.”
“And without it?”
“Without it, I’m just a man who wants you so badly he can’t think straight.”
I set the mask down and move around the island until I’m standing between her knees. She’s still sitting on the stool, which puts us at eye level. Perfect for what I need to show her.
“I want you to understand both sides.” I lift the mask and position it over the lower half of my face. The familiar weight settles against my skin, and immediately I feel the shift. The cold focus. The predatory calm.
“This is who hunted you,” I say, voice muffled by bone and breathing filters. “Who caught you. Who dragged you back.”
I lift her from the stool, pin her against the island’s edge. She gasps, hands flying to my chest, but doesn’t resist when I spin her around, bend her forward over the steel surface.
“This is who bred you in that room.” I grind against her ass, let her feel my hardness through our clothes. “Who claimed every hole. Who plans to keep you forever.”
I push her pants down, along with the cotton underwear I dressed her in. She’s still swollen from our bath encounter, but she’s wet too, responsive even after everything.
“Please,” she whispers, and I can’t tell if it’s a protest or a plea.
I slide into her in one smooth thrust, hold her down with a hand between her shoulder blades. The mask makes my breathing sound inhuman. A predator claiming its prey.
“Mine,” I growl, the word distorted by bone. “Always mine.”
But halfway through fucking her against the cold steel, I reach up and tear the mask away. The transformation is immediate—from Hunter back to man, from predator to the broken thing that needs her like breathing.
“But this is who loves you,” I gasp, completely human now. “This is who can’t survive without you.”
She turns her head and looks at me over her shoulder, her eyes bright with tears. “Nikolai.”
“Both sides,” I whisper, slowing my thrusts until each one is deliberate, meaningful. “The monster and the man. They are each woven into me, to the very core of who I am. You can’t have one without the other, you get both. On none. And I think we both know by now that none isn’t an option.”
She reaches back, fingers trailing along my jawline, my cheekbone, mapping the face she couldn’t see for so long. “I want both.”
The simple acceptance breaks me. I gather her up, turn her to face me, and lift her onto the steel surface so I can look into her eyes while I’m inside her. This isn’t fucking anymore. This is conversation through skin, apology, promise, and desperate hope all intertwined.
“I don’t know how to be what other people call normal,” I admit, moving slowly. “Don’t know how to want someone without wanting to own them.”
“Then don’t be normal.” Her fingers trace my features like she’s memorizing them. “Be mine instead.”
The words hit like physical blows, fundamentally rearranging my values. I come with her name on my lips, spilling into her while she watches every expression cross my unmasked face.
Afterward, I hold her on the steel counter, both of us breathing hard, hearts hammering against each other’s ribs. The mask lies forgotten on the floor between us—bone-white reminder of what I am, what I was made to be.
“The others will want to meet you properly,” I say eventually. “My brothers.”
“Brothers?”
“The ones who survived with me.” I stroke her hair, still damp from our bath. “We’re not blood family. But we’re all we have.”
She nods against my shoulder. “Will they accept me?”
The question makes me smile, though she can’t see it. “They’ve been telling me to keep you since the first night I brought you home.”
“And you?”
I pull back to look at her face, trace the curve of her cheek with my thumb. “I’ve been yours since the moment you dropped to your knees in that concrete cell.”
“Even with the mask?”
“Especially with the mask.” I lean down, kiss her softly. “You’re the only person beyond my brothers who’s ever seen both sides. Will you stay with me?”
She smiles then, the first real smile I’ve seen from her in days. “Where else would I go?”
“Nowhere.” The word comes out fierce and possessive, but she doesn’t flinch. “You’re not going anywhere ever again.”
“Promise?”
I reach down and collect the mask from where it fell. Hold it up between us—the face I wear to hunt, to kill, to become the weapon they designed.
“I promise,” I say, then deliberately set it aside.